Thursday, September 9, 2010

Wounded Lion 'Wounded Lion'

This year saw the release of LA based Wounded Lion's self title debut. Formed in 2005 Wounded Lion is; Brad Eberhard (vocals, guitar, drums), Jun Ohnuki (bass, drums, organ, percussion), Monty Buckles (drums, guitar), Raffi Kalenderian (vocals, percussion, bass), Shant Kalenderian (guitar, bass, vocals). The group made up of painters, film makers and graphic designers somehow found time between other musical projects Lamps, Intelligence, Sic Alps and the Rebel to bring us a slew of releases on SS Records, Gilgongo and In The Red.

Wound Lion's line up of multi-media, multi-instrumentalist artists may read kinda like there's potential for the music to get bogged down with too many cooks in the kitchen, but any sense of complication does end there. The band delivers simple, unconcerned, playful songs. Clocking in at 35 minutes, the record is built on no frills garage pop hooks which are repetitive but alter slightly from track to track breaking up the album. And sure, if you're looking for it you'll hear the Lamp and Intelligence connections. But don't be surprised if it's not that obvious - and that's meant in the best possible way. The lyrics sound like they've been filtered down from lots of ideas, through a sieve and what we're left with is a simplified idea in the form of a word or two - like word collages. There are parts where William S. Burroughs 'Naked Lunch' seems relevant to the record. Again, the ideas seem like they may have come from a complicated place but, the goal is simplicity and with that each listen of this album is more and more rewarding as the possibilities of interpretation are endless.